I'VE HAD MY RUN.

So many thoughts, ideas, feelings to express.  And in one writing no less!  Good luck with that being journalistic material!

Oh well.....who cares?

Not me.

Anymore.

Am leaving Baja early....a trip to Vietnam in early March with my way adventurous travel buddies just popped on the screen!

So.  Life keeps happening.  I will now spend my 70th birthday in the town where I was born!  Go figure.  Feels quite right actually.  And will be with my daughter and sister then which also feels quite right actually.

A girlfriend just wrote and said she never thought she would say Bonnie and Hanoi in the same sentence.

Me neither.

But.

Why not?

I've had my run I have decided.

What freedom that idea brings.  It doesn't really matter when/where/how I die now.

Whatever I was 'going to do in life' I have probably done.  

At least the 'pressure' to do something, to be someone is finally gone for me.

Thank you, God!

Truly.  This aging, this reaching this winter season of my life, the acceptance of that is really quite liberating.

And.  I hadn't really been fully conscious that I had accepted it until recently.  

Like.

Yesterday!

When talking to a dear like-minded aging girlfriend  who had called after a deer hit her while leaving black ice Montana on her way to San Diego.  She was relating that the whole experience was just somehow...okay.....she saw that it was going to happen, couldn't hit the brakes because of the ice, and the deer hit the car, bounced up onto the hood, hit the passenger side of the window which shattered, landed on the other side and ran off.  She was able to continue driving after having the car checked for alignment and am sure was quite the spectacle on the Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Diego freeways!

But basically her experience was:  well, hmmmmm....wonder if this is it?

That's how life feels to me now.  Detached.  In most ways.

Not flat line.

Not indifferent.

Just.

Not particularly interested anymore.   Impassioned anymore.  Certainly not striving anymore.

Not planning on 'meeting a man' anymore.

My friend and I admitted that we really don't like 'anyone' anymore.

Except ourselves, of course!

And isn't that the sustaining truth?

Surprise surprise......

I LOVE 'ME' BEST OF ALL!

And honestly.....don't we all?  We are THE HEROES of our life, of our story, of our dream.  We are who we truly watch out for.  Make sure desires are satisfied for.

Be it food, shelter, clothing....you name it ...are for.

Isn't it a shame that all this freedom, this honesty seems wasted on the 'old?'

How liberating it would have been to 'get this' when thirty, forty.  How much more relaxing and enjoyable life would have been knowing that all the ambition, all the striving, all the identity seeking doesn't mean squat.  

Zip.

Zero.

Nada.

This poem by Mary Oliver seems timely:  Wild Geese

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting..

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things."

So.

Since I've had my run.

I'm going to "let the soft animal of my body love what it loves" from now on.

Without guilt.

With self compassion.

With.

Abandon.

I love you....

BUT I LOVE 'ME' BEST!

Phew. I Made It! (...said from the deathbed)

In my last post I mentioned 'posting' this chapter from my book, Am I Dead Yet?
It still seems up for me, this illusive idea of some sort of survival mechanism from death?
...So, here it is.

(P.S...all my prompts for my blog are now in Spanish!!! So I am never 'really' sure quite what will happen!)   :0)


PHEW:

Phew.  I made it! (said from the death bed)

Isn't it interesting that we spend so much, all?, of our lives trying to survive so that we can be relieved on our death bed that we made it?!

Maybe this is a futile attempt at expressing the unexpressable.

But.

I watched my father...I could use me and may...and, right now, I'll use him.

I watched my father, after mom died, go to heroic lengths to finally 'make it' to his death bed....heroically!  (See:  "Well Guys, I'm Going To Die Tonight.)

He pool exercised, often twice a day, even in 58 degree water to 'outsmart', to beat, the effects of Parkinsons, the effects of the aging body of a 90+ year old.  He had regular deep body work with a friend of mine which often left him exhausted.  He went to physical therapy.  He begged his neurologist  to have him be a guinea pig for experimental brain surgery.  He would have done ANYTHING to prolong "making it" to his death bed.

Bless his heart.

How I miss this man.  Love this man.  Because of this I think he is with me more than when he was here.

One talks about 'Keep on keeping on'.  He was the king of keep on keeping on.  He was the model for 'passion for life'.  

How could I possibly judge him?

Why would I?

Did I?

Yes.

I did.

Near the end.  Certainly, the last year.

Dad, let go.  Give it up.  You won't win this battle.

SO much will to live.  Like the new young tree growing out of the seemingly dead stump.

Reasons to live.  The last one:  buy a new helicopter for the business.  It wasn't about rationale.  It was about a reason to live.  Something to look forward to.  Scorpio intensity.  He could sit in it.  He could be a passenger in it.  Heartwrenchingly, he could not fly it.

I think he ran out of reasons to perpetuate himself:

---Burt, the quintessential pilot.

---Burt, the quintessential employer.

---Burt, the generous father, grandfather, great grandfather.

---Burt, the willing guinea pig.

---Burt, the battler of Parkinsons.

---Burt, the battler of aging.

---Burt, the buyer of new helicopters.

What happened?

Was it running out of reasons?

Did he just finally get tired?

Finally see the futility?

Made a decision to stop?

Stop trying to 'make it' til the death bed?

Let whatever Burt was, go?

Bless his heart.

Bless his heart.

Bless his heart.

Bless our hearts.

Bless my heart.

Bless your heart.

Is this the 'die before you die'?

I think so.

Yes.  

Can I?

Die before I die?

Stop?

Quit trying to 'make it'? 

In Baja & Nearing Seventy

Well, here I am again, in warm, sunny Todos Santos.

Ahhhhh.

From -5 to 68.  From white/grey to technicolor.

Flowers, birdsong (yes, roosters, too), hummingbirds, open windows/doors, palms rustling, waves crashing, aromas, t-shirt pjs, dirt roads/pot holes, and retraining about not throwing t.p. into toilets!

From wearing 'chains' on shoes to wearing nothing on feet.

From cautious stepping to mindless wander.

Liberation.

Freedom.

And yet.

Uncannily, experiencing "Ground Hog Day" movie.

"Been there.  Done that.  Again."

Life seems to be that in most ways for me of late.

Rereading: I AM THAT (talks with Sri Nisargadatta Majaraj).   And.  Am revisiting, again.  Remembering, again.  That this world is a dream of my own making.  An illusion.

Some excerpts:

"To crave is to slave.

Everything happens by itself, quite spontaneously.

To want nothing and do nothing--that is true creation.

To watch the Universe emerging and subsiding in ones' heart is a wonder.

When effort is needed, effort will appear.

You need not push life about.  Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, which is the dying now to the now.

For living is dying.

Without death life cannot be.

Don't be afraid.  Don't resist, don't delay.

Be what you are.

There is nothing to be afraid of.

Trust.

Give your real being a chance to shape your life.

You will not regret.

The Universe of Pain is born of Desire.  Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain."

on and on............

So.

Here am I.  With some time to contemplate.  Reflect.  Remember.  From Whence Am I.

To once again.

Surrender.

This life we live.  This self-awareness we have.  This apparent duality.

What a thing it is.

Before leaving Montana, a dear friend visiting her family, asked me:  What is it like nearing seventy?  What are you feeling?  Thinking?

Provocative questions.

I am noticing several things.

My temptation to keep trying to 'be somebody.'  Establish a viable identity.  Like 'be a Human Design Analyst.'  Like 'DO' something in the world.

Have noticed feeling more and more 'invisible' as I age.  In social environments, noticing that if I am quiet....I am not noticed.  Engaged.  Unless I initiate.

I think in our primarily narcissistic culture with so much focus on being/looking eternally young that our elderly are not as honored, respected, included as in other cultures.  And that is even changing as those cultures are westernizing.  Having 'the reflection of aging' front and center just brings our mortality to close to home.  Too painful to accept somehow.  So.  Need to avoid that reflection?

It has not been without some effort, some struggle, to surrender to this aging process.  To no longer being middle aged. The mirror is not so friendly.   The uphill grade when hiking not so friendly.  The subtle and not-so-subtle memory challenges not so friendly.  The wearing out of body parts not so friendly.  

I am noticing that the idea of death doesn't bother me so much.  The idea of the process of dying is not so friendly.  But how else are we gonna get outta here?

More.

The idea of more is up to consider.

More time so that I can see the grand girls grow up.  Whom they become.  Whom/if they marry.   More time to watch my son, my daughter's lives unfold.  Yet that inkling of fear for them.   What trials ahead?

Maybe I will post  the story:  "Phew, I Made It" from my book.....seems timely.   It's like:  Phew, I made it.....without (fill in the blank) happening.   Phew, 'they' made it without......     Made it.....where?  To 'their' deathbeds?   

Crazy world, this.

Crazy mind, mine.

I think I have decided to do nothing.

Do what shows up to do.  

Not strive anymore.

Try that.

See what happens.   What life brings to me.  Without me trying to bring it to me.

Not strive to return to Idaho.  Not strive to sell houses.  Buy houses.  Move.

See what the flow of life brings to me.

Do what I do.

"Give my real being a chance to shape my life."

Experience that.

Just.

Stop.

Trying.

And.

See what happens.

Feliz Ano, all.

Besos y Abrazos!